▇▇ ABOUT ▇▇ — ▋▅▉▝▊ || beyond resolution

︎︎︎︎︎ ︎︎︎︎︎ ︎︎︎︎︎ ︎︎︎︎︎ ︎︎︎︎︎ ︎︎︎︎︎ ︎︎︎︎︎ ︎︎︎︎︎ ︎︎︎︎︎ ︎︎︎︎︎ ︎︎︎︎︎ ︎︎︎︎︎ ︎︎︎︎︎ ︎︎︎︎︎

This is an old video portfolio.
For more recent work consider taking a look at my ---->> pdf portfolio

Hi! My name is Rosa Menkman and I work as a Dutch artist and researcher of resolutions, with a special focus on glitches, resolutions, cyclopes 👁️, im/possible images, lost and unnamed colours and IANAI, the goddess of staircases 𓊍

In my work, I focus on noise artifacts that result from accidents in both analogue and digital media, that offer insights into their otherwise black boxed modes of operation. As a compendium to this research, I published the Glitch Moment/um (INC, 2011), a little book on the exploitation and popularization of glitch artifacts.

I developed and highlighted the politics of resolution setting further in a second book titled Beyond Resolution (i.R.D., 2020). In this book, I wrote how the standardization of resolutions is not only a process that promotes efficiency, order and functionality, but also involves compromises and the obfuscation of alternative possibilities.

In 2019 I won the Collide, Arts at CERN Barcelona award, which inspired my recent research in im/possible images. Which resulted in the im/possible images reader (published by the i.R.D. & Lothringer, with support from V2, 2022). A research I expanded during my time at EPFL (Lausanne) at Enter the Hyper-Scientific (2023), where I developed a Spectrum of Lost and Unnamed Colours. With my research, I aim to find new ways to understand and perceive through the use of, and interaction with, our technologies.

From 2018 - 2020 I worked as substitute Professor Neue Medien & Visuelle Kommunikation at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. From 2023-2024 I run the im/possible lab at HEAD Geneve.
All class materials can be found here, I wish you <copy-it-right>

MOST OF MY (SOLO) SHOWS CAME WITH A PUBLICATION:
︎ Order and Progress (2010) publication: Vernacular of File Formats
︎ i.R.D. (2015) publication: i.R.D.
︎ Behind White Shadows (2017) publication: BWS
︎ Shadow Knowledge (2020) publication: Beyond Resolution
︎ Im/Possible Images (2022) publication: Im/Possible Images Reader

RECENT WORKS:
* A SPECTRUM OF LOST AND UNNAMED COLOURS
* A COLLECTION OF COLLECTIONS FOLDED INTO A LIBRARY (2023)
* JPEG FROM A VERNACULAR OF FILE FORMATS, (2009 - 2010), REVISITATION WITH HIDDEN MESSAGE IN DCT (2023)

* REFRACTIONS in Light and Time (2023)
WHITEOUT video documentary / performance (2020 - 2022)

* IM/POSSIBLE IMAGES reader, 3D work w/ video and exhibition (2021-2023)

* DE/CALIBRATION TARGET (2023)
* DE/CALIBRATION ARMY prints and video (2020)
* SHREDDED HOLOGRAM ROSE (2023)
* BEYOND RESOLUTION Book (2020)
* UNRESOLVED data painting (2020)

RECENT VIDEO LECTURES:
A Collection of Collections inside a Library for the INC (2023)
Resolution Studies Lecture for MIT (2021)
Destitute Vision Lecture for NCAD (2021)
It takes more than the past to understand the archive video essay for Stedelijk Studies (2020)

RECENT FACILITATION:
To be released: OUTLAND ART MAGAZINE ON GLITCH
NOT.GLI.TC/H (Chicago, April 1st 2023)
NFTs and their Impact on Art Creation, Curation, and Commerce (Kassel, 22-23 July 2022)
IM/POSSIBLE SUMMER SCHOOL (W/ Luzi Gross, Munich, 2021)

This website was made possible with the financial support of the Stimuleringsfonds.nl (2018)

This site functions as a repository and portfolio of my artistic research.
Please <copy-it-right>

I am grateful to have received a basis stipend from the Mondriaan Fund (2018-2021) and just recently, again: 2023 - 2027!

︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎ ︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎ ︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎ ︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎ ︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎ ︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎

The Journey of my Protagonist

The "Angel of History,”(inspired by Paul Klee’s - century old - 1920 Angelus Novus - but in female form) is a recurrent motif in my work since the "Collapse of PAL" (live television performance, 2010). She symbolizes an evolving narrative intertwined through and within my life and practice. This figure, originating as a farewell gesture to the PAL signal, has transformed across different mediums, adopting roles that echo changing times and technological breakdowns on the cusp of advancement.

In "Xilitla" (3D interactive poetic environment, 2013), the Angel navigates a non-linear narrative about self-transformation marked by foretelling capabilities (‘I feel like I know her, but sometimes, her eyes bend back’), while climbing and falling from a spiralling Staircase to Nowhere.

The Angel is a witness in the journey of two DCT blocks (junior and senior) in "DCT:SYPHONING" (VR, 2017), where she observes the blocks transversing the Realms of Compression Complexities (dither, lines, blocks, wavelets and vectors). In the final chapter (level), the angel suggests a nonlinear path to decode knowledge: ‘knowledge spans over multiple dimensions. In knowledge, data moves not just northwards,’ while again, positioned next to the Staircase to Nowhere.

A narrative escalation is written into "Pique Nique Pour Les Inconnues" (desktop video, 2020), in which the Angel orchestrates a collective performance of Paul McCartney's “We All Stand Together.” As she unites the lost and unacknowledged faces of image processing colour test cards. She also hints at a movement: “the DeCalibration Army” (non-quadrilateral prints, one of a kind archival prints that each come with an embedded AR video 2019 - ongoing)

In "The BLOB of im/possible images” (3D world with exhibition, 2021-2022), the Angel (again, positioned next to the Staircase to Nowhere, this time flanked by a map reminiscing the Realms of Compression Complexities) beckons visitors to venture into a Binary Large OBject, an allegory for the intersections between art, technology, and the realms of imagination.

In the "The Shredded Hologram Rose" (3D narrative, 2021-2023), inspired by the 1977 science fiction short story by William Gibson, IANA, a Media Archeologist from ‘100 Cycles into the Future’ comes home to her Hyper Yves Klein Blue-saturated cube. In the cube, she reflects on her day, which started in misery: she fractured her Hologram Rose. She describes her visit to the i.R.D. (institutions, 2015) "DeCalibration Target" (monumental landart installation, 2023) which she hopes will help her repair the Hologram Rose. On the walls of IANA’s cube hang posters documenting the Angel of History’s transformation from Paul Klees’ painting into a Cyclops, and finally, IANA.

IANA, formerly known as The Angel of History, now goddess of rainbows and (where considered as something else) staircases.